Be this as it may, it is probable that the Romans, along with their other habits and fashions, imported the various games which they played with the _follis_ or with other kinds of ball, into England. One of these balls, used by the Romans, and by them derived from the Greeks, was the _harpastum_, the game played with which was that the players of one side should try to carry the ball over a line defended by the other side, a pastime which bears no small resemblance to the game of “hurling,” which we shall describe later. But whether football was really introduced into Britain by the Romans, or whether it be an indigenous product of the country, yet, with the exception of the one doubtful reference to an anonymous manuscript to which allusion has formerly been made, we do not find any mention of the game in the annals of our Anglo-Saxon progenitors; and it is not until the 13th century that we find genuine historical authority on the subject. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER II. _History of Football before the Puritan Era._ The first mention of the game of football in English history is made by Fitz-Stephen, who, writing in the 13th century, says, “Annually upon Shrove Tuesday they (the London school-boys) go into the fields immediately after dinner and play at the celebrated game of ball (_ludum pilæ celebrem_).” But it is only fair to add, that the learned Strutt himself never felt certain that the reference here was to football. He tells us, in his commentary upon the passage, that Stowe, in his explanation of the words, has added, “without the least sanction from the Latin,” the word bastion, “meaning a bat or cudgel,” being of opinion that the game signified was something of the nature of goff (golf) or bandy-ball (_sc._, hockey). If Stowe was guilty of this bold gloss, and there is no question that he was, then it is clear that the game of the London school-boys is as likely to have been football as anything else, although Strutt is of the contrary opinion. For Strutt’s view is based upon the ground that football, as a pastime, “does not seem to be a very proper game for children.” On the other hand, there are strong reasons for believing that this game may have been football, for in the first place there is good historical evidence to the effect that Shrove Tuesday was a regular day upon which the London apprentices and those of other great cities, such as Chester, and the Scotch peasants, regularly indulged in the game of football. This evidence will be set forth immediately. But it is also a matter to be noted, that London is one of the places where football seems never to have died out, while the London schools, notably Westminster and the Charterhouse, were the places in which one species of the game of football was kept alive in a period of great athletic depression, to emerge, at the time of the recent athletic revival, in the form of the Association game.